


Flash Of A Million Miles

by Hekate1308



Series: Right Timing [2]
Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 01:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13400319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: Everything’s the same, and yet nothing is the same. Morse/Joan.





	Flash Of A Million Miles

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to Two Peas In A Pod, but can be read as a standalone. Enjoy!

Everything’s the same, and yet nothing is the same. Miss Thursday – no, Joan; Morse figured that proposing to her allows him to use her first name – has returned to her parents home, without telling them about the miscarriage, he believes; but who is he to wonder? He has no right to judge anyone.

Morse, now officially DCI Thursday’s Sergeant and bagman, picks him up every weekday, awkwardly greets Joan and Mrs. Thursday, and drives him to work.

Once upon a time, all of this had the comfort of familiarity, but that’s been snatched away from them. Or perhaps it’s only Morse who feels that way.

It’s not his place to ask.

Life goes on. Sometimes he wonders if Joan was right, if it was pity that made him propose to her; but then he sees her smile at something her mother says to her in the morning, laugh as she hides the pain in her eyes, and once more learns the truth.

He doesn’t expect anything to change until she seeks him out one night. He’s listening to Bach when his door bell rings.

“Hello Morse” she greets him.

He swallows. “Joan.”

She smiles sadly. “So this is what had to happen for you to call me that?”

When he doesn’t answer, she continues, “Can I come in? Mum and Dad are wonderful, but I felt like I was suffocating tonight. I needed to get out. I told them I was visiting a girlfriend.”

More lies, then. He lets her in.

She asks for a drink; he gives her a glass of the whiskey’s he’s been drinking. They listen to the music, not saying anything.

“Bach?” she asks. He nods. “I’ve been listening to more classical music these past few months.”

“It’s balm for the soul” he says.

She casts her eyes around his flat and he knows she sees the mess he’s made of it. “Don’t worry” he says lightly. “It looked like this way before…” he trails off. If he wanted to make a joke, and he’s not entirely sure he did, it falls flat.

“Morse” she says, sounding rather sad, “I –“

“It’s quite alright.”

“No it’s not, but then, what is?”

She’s too right for him to protest.

“Can we be friends?” she finally asks after several more minutes of silence. “I feel we could both use one.”

That might be true, but there’s a lot of history between them.

He agrees anyway.

Becoming Joan’s friend is surprisingly easy. They meet up for coffees on weekends, sometimes they even go dancing, despite Morse’s disdain for modern music. She visits him in the evenings to discuss books, politics, how their lives are going.

Morse learns that it’s all too easy to fall in love with Joan Thursday all over again when there are no mixed messages, just friendly company and smiles.

He drinks less and less; Joan often comes over without calling first, and he doesn’t want to see the disappointment in her eyes when he’s inebriated.

DCI and Mrs. Thursday, meanwhile, have bounced back from the worry and grief they experienced over their daughter disappearing and treat Morse like one of their own again. Sometimes he feels slightly guilty because he’s rather sure Joan has told them nothing about their meeting so often; but they’re not doing anything harmful.

One night at the pub – Strange has all but strong-armed him into going, and is now throwing his orange juice baffled glances – he asks, “What did you want to talk about?” It’s easy enough to tell there’s something gnawing at him.

Strange looks him right in the eyes. “Matey, I just wanted to tell you I won’t say a thing… but the old man’s going to have your hide.”

“What do you –“

“I saw you and Miss Thursday at the club last weekend.”

Joan wanted to go dancing, and Morse has learned to cherish the moments he can hold her in his arms. He shrugs. “We’re just friends.”

Strange snorts. “Sorry to tell you, but friends don’t look at one another that way.”

Morse knows any protest would be useless, would just seem like he’s trying to cover his tracks, and it also doesn’t help that his brain immediately said look at one another and not the way you look at her.

He decides to ignore it, but pays Strange another pint for being a good friend.

Max DeBryn is more blunt, as always.

“And who” he asks one day at the morgue, “is the lucky lady?”

“What?” he asks, feeling DCI Thursday’s gaze on him.

“You’ve filled out a bit, are suddenly impeccably dressed, I haven’t smelled alcohol on your breath in months, and you smile when you enter the morgue despite your necrophobia. I don’t have to be a detective to see something’s changed.”

He changes the subject back to the case.

As he and Thursday leave the morgue, he begins, “Sir…”

“It’s alright Morse, I don’t expect to be told every detail of your private life. DeBryn’s right, though; happy is a good look on you.”

He is happy, he realizes. It won’t last; it never does for him; but he might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

During a stake out later in the month DCI Thursday says suddenly, “There’s something the matter with Joan.”

Morse frowns; he saw her yesterday, and she seemed fine. “Is everything –“

“It’s not – that’s not what I meant. She’s been going out a lot recently.”

Morse doesn’t know her she goes if she isn’t with him. He has no right to ask. He’s silent. Thursday takes it as encouragement to go on. “I have seen her fancy blokes before. This is different – this seems somehow more real.”

And Morse understands his dilemma, the troubles of a father watching his daughter fall in love.

He doubts it’s anything like the pain he feels upon imagining Joan with someone else, someone who actually deserves her.

He knew his happiness couldn’t last.

Yet, a few days later, he basks in her smiles and company again, until she says, “Dad’s been really weird this week.”

“I didn’t notice anything.”

“I didn’t mean in general. When it comes to me. He suddenly frets a lot more when I go out again. Mum’s not even a little worried anymore, but he…”

“There’s something he said to me during our last stakeout” Morse forces himself to say. If he has to hear the words, he wants to hear them quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. “He seems to think you’re seeing someone, and that you’re – that it’s serious.”

She looks at him and he manages not to look away. He’s surprised when she laughs, happy and carefree. “It sort of is, but then it always was with us, even when it wasn’t.”

He’s still trying to decipher her words when her hand comes to rest on his left cheek and she kisses him.

Later, Joan says quietly, “I would say it’s been a long time coming, but that would be an understatement.” Her head is lying on Morse’s chest, he’s wrapped his arms around her.

“Are you happy though?” he asks.

“Yes” she tells him, her face transformed by a blissful smile he wants to see every day for the rest of his life.

He’s happy too, but it’s not like the fever of first love he experienced with Susan. It’s a steadier, slower form of happiness.

As the weeks turn into months, Morse slowly allows himself to believe that this might be it for him.

DCI Thursday grows slightly irritable; Morse can’t explain why until he bursts out, one day during lunch, “Why doesn’t she bring the chap around if he’s decent?”

“Who, sir?” he asks, looking up. Four minutes, and he’s done with the crossword. A new personal record.

“Joan. We know she’s seeing someone, she told us that, at least, but we don’t even know his name.”

“I’m sure she will in time.”

Thursday grumbles something to himself. Morse catches Stranger’s eyes.

He knows.

Morse buys him another pint that night, as always these days sticking to orange juice.

“You’ll have to tell him eventually. You can’t marry her without your father-in-law noticing.”

Morse wonders how he knows about the ring Joyce sent him a few days ago. His mother’s, the one he thought he’d never give another woman after Susan. He doesn’t have any concrete plans yet, but he’s started to hope that she might be more amenable to his proposal now than before.

“I know” he answer matter-of-factly, “But whether he approves or not doesn’t change that I love her.”

Strange blinks. “Oh God. She’s actually the one, isn’t she, matey.”

He doesn’t answer, eh simply smiles.

About a month after that, he gets injured on the job again. It’s not much – the bullet just grazes his side – but it’s bad enough that he has to go to the hospital to get stitches.

He forgot that naturally DCI Thursday would call home to tell them what happened, and that therefore Joan would hear.

He sitting up on a bed, the doctor having patched him up, when the door bursts open and Joan and Mrs. Thursday hurry through. “Endeavour!” she calls out before all but throwing herself into his arms, in full view of her parents.

At first, he’s too busy reassuring Joan that he’s fine and enjoying (maybe it’s wrong of him, but it feels to good) her fussing over him to pay much attention, until he hears DCI Thursday remark drily, a certain edge in his voice, “This explains a few things.”

“Fred” Mrs. Thursday begins, but Joan turns around resolutely. “Dad, we didn’t want Endeavour being your bagman getting in the way, or for things to be awkward.”

“Endeavour?” Morse whispers to her.

“I won’t call the man I marry by his last name – our last name, then.”

His eyes widen as she smiles. “Your sister wrote to me, gushing about our “approaching nuptials.”

Joyce has always been incredibly formal when it comes to things like this.

“I was waiting for you to ask again, but then I thought it would only be fair if I proposed this time.”

Her kiss almost drowns out her father’s exclamation of “This time?”

Things are tense for a while. Superintendent Bright doesn’t want to split up one of his most successful teams, not even as Morse offers to fill any position he should see fit.

For days, DCI Thursday only talks to him about job-related things, and then he suddenly turns up on his doorstep one evening, a bottle of brandy in his hands.

“If you don’t mind terribly, sir” Morse says, “I’d rather drink water.”

Thursday nods. The evening is mostly spent in silence, and Morse makes him take the unopened bottle back home at the end.

The next morning, it’s raining and Thursday upon opening the door says “Better come in, Endeavour. You can have a cup of tea.”

Mrs. Thursday – “Call me Win now, please, Endeavour, I insist on it” – is beaming as she serves them breakfast, Morse unable to convince her to let him help. Joan takes his hand and smiles, shaking her head.

He understands he passed some sort of test when he declined the drink. His fiancé laughs when he tells her about it.

At least DCI Thursday seems to trust him again.

They marry a few months later with all their friends and family in attendance; even Jakes sends flowers.

“Think we’ll make it?” Joan asks him when they have a moment for themselves, her eyes sparkling.

“We’ll have to wait and see” is his answer, despite his resolution that he’ll never let her go.

Twenty-five years later

They consider themselves lucky the call comes after a late lunch.

Joan shakes her head. “And here I was hoping our wedding anniversary would be somewhat calm.”

He smiles at her as he listens to Lewis’ explaining that a man has been found dead in his house, stabbed, according to Max. Calm? Their morning was anything but, since they took advantage of the fact that both kids were out of the house.

“I’ll come pick you up, sir. And sorry for –“

“It’s not your fault, Robbie. Plus we do have Saturday; remember, you and your wife are both invited.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“And there better not be any murders on Saturday” Joan announces after he’s hung up. “It was bad enough when you whisked Dad off of his and Mum’s celebration.”

“I did have a valid reason at the time.”

She kisses him. “I know. Just come back home in one piece so we can continue celebrating.”

Sergeant Lewis arrives a quarter of an hour later. “Sorry to disturb you today of all days, sir…”

“I told you, Robbie, it’s alright. Let’s just get this over with; Joan would never forgive me if we miss the party at Saturday.”

They don’t.


End file.
